Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post quotes portions of Chapter 2 "Black Names In The United States" in the 1993 book "The African Heritage Of American English", by Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass. The main source of information in that book is Lorenzo Dow Turner's 1949 book
Africanisms In The Gullah Dialect.
The Addendum to this post also provides additional information about Akan names.
Information about Gullah culture and Lorenzo Dow Turner can be found in this pancocojams post
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/10/reprinted-nigerian-newspaper-column.html Reprinted Nigerian Newspaper Column: "Nigerian and African Muslim Personal Names Among the Gullah of Georgia and South Carolina" By Farooq Kperogi
Other related pancocojams posts about African American names and naming practices during slavery in the Gullah Sea Islands Of Georgia and South Carolina can be found by clicking those tags below this post. Some of the material in these posts may duplicate the material that is found in this post.
Thee content of this post is provided for historical, onomastics, and cultural purposes.
I quote portions of hard to find books and lesser known articles to raise awareness of those materials and to encourage people to read the complete works.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
This post honors the memory of all those Black people who experienced the horrors of the Middle Passage and the horrors of chattel slavery in the Americas and in the Caribbean. Thanks to all the collectors of the information that is included in this book, thanks to all who are quoted in this post, and thanks to this book's editors.
****
BOOK EXCERPT FROM "THE AFRICAN HERITAGE OF AMERICAN ENGLISH"
edited by Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass (Indiana University Press, 1993)
[This excerpt is given without number citations.]
Chapter Two: Black Names In The United States
African Names In Colonial America
[page] 80
[... "African arriving in Colonial America, especially South Carolina, continued to give their children African names well in to the nineteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries African- American slaves had retained Africanisms in their naming practices. The greatest percentage of African names occurred among male slaves in the eighteenth century, when the majority of the black population was still unacculturated. African names gave them a sense of cultural integrity and a link o their African past and heritage.
While learning English the Africans did not at first forget their traditional naming practices. During the Colonial period the practice of naming children after the days of the week, months, and seasons was retained. In some cases, the African-Americans retained the original African versions of their day names, but as generations passed they substituted the original African name for their English equivalent. The following table lists Akan day names found in the
South Carolina Gazette
Also found in the
Gazette and other publications are such temporal names as January, April, May, June, September, November, March, August, Christmas, and Midday. There are numerous examples of English equivalents of African day names such as Monday, Tuesday, or Friday. According to Cohen, male names derived from the seasons ae Spring (Ebo or Calabar) and Winter. Moon and Thunder are names connected with the state of the weather at the time of birth. Other names which are probably English equivalents of African words are Arrow (‘of the Pappa country’), Boy (Guiney), Huntsman (new), Little One (Ebo), Plenty (Gambia and Mandingo), and Sharper (Bambara). This Akan naming was practiced in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina until the 1930s. Actually, Cohen is incorrect in listing Little One as the English equivalent of Spanish
pequeno nino. Pickanniny, meaning “very little one”, survives from Spanish trade.
After the first and second generation, Africans began to substitute African day names for the English translations. Paul Cuffee, a wealthy shipbuilder, came from the African naming system. Cuffee, the seventh of ten children of Paul and Mary Slocum, was born on January 17, 1759, on Elizabeth Island near New Bedford, Massachusetts. When he was nineteen years old, nine of the children droooed the slave name Slocum (the surname of their father’s master) and adopted their father’s
[page 81]
Table 5 Days of the Week With Corresponding African Names
Day-------------Male Name ----------Female Name
Monday----------Cudjoe--------------Juba
Tuesday---------Cubbenah------------Beneba
Wednesday-------Quaco---------------Cuba
Thursday--------Quao----------------Abba
Friday---------Cuffee---------------Phibba
Saturday-------Quamin---------------Mimba
Sunday---------Quashee--------------Quasheba
slave name Cufie. This word is Ashanti meaning “male child born on Friday”, and coms from
Kofi. Dillard pointed out that female day names followed practices similar to male day names and that Cuba was among the most common names given to female children born on Wednesday. The name often given to a female child born on Friday was Phibba, which was later translated into Phoebe. Abby came from Abba,, the female day name for Thursday. According to Dillard, the name Benah, from Gubena (Tuesday), was frequently misanalysed as “Venus”. Cudjoe, the male day name for Monday, might be Monday in one generation, then Joe in the next.
The Georgia Writers; Project during the 1930s found that among the Georgia coastal blacks, a number of people had been named for week days or the month in which they were born. One ex-slave who was interviewed in regard to this practice, Thursday Jones, explained:
Day name me dat way ji cus uh happen tuh be bawn on Tursday, I guess. Sech things seen tub be in our fambly. I had ah uncle who name tis Monday Collins. It seem tuh come duh fus ting tuh folks’ mine tuh name duh babies fuh duh dey is baw on.
Here we see how the English equivalent of African day names were being used. By the nineteenth century the African day names often had lost their meaning, but African Americans continued to give day names after their parents.
Quaco, the male day name for Wednesday, was also commonly found during the Colonial period. But later Quaco became Jacco, Jacky, and Jack. There was the case of Martin Jackson of Texas who decided to become Jackson because one of his relatives had a similar African name.
The master’s name was usually adopted by a slave after he was set free. This was done more because it was the logical thing to do and the easiest way to be identified, than it was through affection for the master. Also, the government seemed to be in an almighty hurry to have us get names. We had to register as
[page] 82
someone, so we could be citizens. Well, I got to thinking about all us slaves that were going to take the name Fitzpatrick. I made up my mind I’d find me a different one. One of my grandfathers in Africa was called Jeaceo, so I decided on Jackson.
By 1734, when the
South Carolina Gazette was established, names of African origin included Bowbaw, Cuffee, Ebo Jo, Ganda, Quaquo, Quomenor, and Quoy for male Africans and Auba, Bucko, Jba Mimba, Odah, and Otta for females. African names common in the eighteenth century were Sambo, Quash, Mingo, and Juba. The most widely used day names were Cuffee (Kofi) and Cudjoe for males and Abba and Juba for females.
According to Cohen, African day names and their English counterparts existed side by side. Two male slaves named Friday, one of them “this country born” and the other from the “Angola Country”, and two male slaves named Monday, one from “Bomborough” (Bambara?) and the other “A Barbian (Bambara) Negro” are mentioned in the Gazette.
Blanche Britt supplied Mencken with this list of African names taken from southern newspapers from 1736 to the end of the eighteenth century: Annika, Boohum, Boomy, Bowzar, Cuffee, Cuffey, Cuffy, Habella, Kauchee, Mila, Minas, Monimea, Oamo, Qua, Quaco, Quamina, Quash, Warrah, and Yonaha.
Information about Table 6 "African Names From The South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1775 and that list of names is excluded from this excerpt as is information about Table 7 "Names Listed on the Dutch Slave Ship Wittepaert, and that list of names; Table 6 is given on page 83 and Table 7 is given on page 84
[...]
Africanisms In African-American Name Changes
Names are of great importance in West and Central Africa. Names are given at stages in an individual's life and, as among all people for whom magic is important, the identification of a real name with the personality of its bearer is held to be so complete that this real name, usually the one given at birth by a particular relative, must be kept secret lest it come in to the hands of someone who might use it in working evil magic against that person. That is way, among Africans, a person's name may in so many instances change with time, a new designation being assumed on the occasion of some striking occurrence in that person's life. When the person goes through one of the rites marking a new stage in his or her development, a name change also occurs to note the event.
Stuckey, in
Slave Culture; Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (1987) noted that Black naming practices were African in origin, in that African Americans changed their names just as Africans did, corresponding to major changes in the life of the individual. This name shifting is clearly demonstrated by
[page] 85
The experience of Frederick Douglas, who, soon after escaping slavery, began a series of name changes.
On the morning after our arrival at New Bedford, while at the breakfast-table, the question arose as to what name I should be called by. The name given me by my mother was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I, however, had dispensed with the two middle names long before I left Maryland so that I was generally known by the name Frederick Bailey. I started from Baltimore, I found it necessary again to change my name....I gave Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nathan Johnson of New Bedford, the privilege of choosing me a name, but told him he must not take from me the name of "Frederick", I must hold on to that sense of identity.
Sojourner Truth, a crusader for black emancipation and feminine equality, was known as Isabella until about age twenty, when she was freed and left her master's plantation. She had a vision in a dream that told her about her new name and her mission to free her people. And Malcolm X, through various stages of his life, was known as Malcolm Little, Homeboy, Detroit Red, Big Red, Satan, Malcolm, El-haji and Malik El Shabazz.
Such name shifting is common throughout West and particularly Central Africa. In many parts of Africa every man who leaves his traditional setting and family is given or takes a new name when he turns and walks away from home. This situation parallels that of slaves who were brought to the Americas, away from their ethnic group, but who remained in contact with others who shared a similar ethic background.
Nowhere is this tradition so vivid as in the jazz world, where name shifting is common, signaling a major event in the life of the musician: Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand La Menthe), Satchmo (Louis Armstrong), Yardbird (Charles Parker), Lady (Billie Holiday). The story of these name changes follows the African pattern of using a new name to adapt to new circumstances and changes in the person's life."
African Names In Colonial America
[page] 80
[... "African arriving in Colonial America, especially South Carolina, continued to give their children African names well in to the nineteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries African- American slaves had retained Africanisms in their naming practices. The greatest percentage of African names occurred among male slaves in the eighteenth century, when the majority of the black population was still unacculturated. African names gave them a sense of cultural integrity and a link o their African past and heritage.
While learning English the Africans did not at first forget their traditional naming practices. During the Colonial period the practice of naming children after the days of the week, months, and seasons was retained. In some cases, the African-Americans retained the original African versions of their day names, but as generations passed they substituted the original African name for their English equivalent. The following table lists Akan day names found in the
South Carolina Gazette
Also found in the
Gazette and other publications are such temporal names as January, April, May, June, September, November, March, August, Christmas, and Midday. There are numerous examples of English equivalents of African day names such as Monday, Tuesday, or Friday. According to Cohen, male names derived from the seasons ae Spring (Ebo or Calabar) and Winter. Moon and Thunder are names connected with the state of the weather at the time of birth. Other names which are probably English equivalents of African words are Arrow (‘of the Pappa country’), Boy (Guiney), Huntsman (new), Little One (Ebo), Plenty (Gambia and Mandingo), and Sharper (Bambara). This Akan naming was practiced in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina until the 1930s. Actually, Cohen is incorrect in listing Little One as the English equivalent of Spanish
pequeno nino. Pickanniny, meaning “very little one”, survives from Spanish trade.
After the first and second generation, Africans began to substitute African day names for the English translations. Paul Cuffee, a wealthy shipbuilder, came from the African naming system. Cuffee, the seventh of ten children of Paul and Mary Slocum, was born on January 17, 1759, on Elizabeth Island near New Bedford, Massachusetts. When he was nineteen years old, nine of the children droooed the slave name Slocum (the surname of their father’s master) and adopted their father’s
[page 81]
Table 5: Days of the Week With Corresponding African Names
Day-------------Male Name ----------Female Name
Monday----------Cudjoe--------------Juba
Tuesday---------Cubbenah------------Beneba
Wednesday-------Quaco---------------Cuba
Thursday--------Quao----------------Abba
Friday---------Cuffee---------------Phibba
Saturday-------Quamin---------------Mimba
Sunday---------Quashee--------------Quasheba
slave name Cufie. This word is Ashanti meaning “male child born on Friday”, and coms from
Kofi. Dillard pointed out that female day names followed practices similar to male day names and that Cuba was among the most common names given to female children born on Wednesday. The name often given to a female child born on Friday was Phibba, which was later translated into Phoebe. Abby came from Abba,, the female day name for Thursday. According to Dillard, the name Benah, from Gubena (Tuesday), was frequently misanalysed as “Venus”. Cudjoe, the male day name for Monday, might be Monday in one generation, then Joe in the next.
The Georgia Writers; Project during the 1930s found that among the Georgia coastal blacks, a number of people had been named for week days or the month in which they were born. One ex-slave who was interviewed in regard to this practice, Thursday Jones, explained:
Day name me dat way ji cus uh happen tuh be bawn on Tursday, I guess. Sech things seen tub be in our fambly. I had ah uncle who name tis Monday Collins. It seem tuh come duh fus ting tuh folks’ mine tuh name duh babies fuh duh dey is baw on.
Here we see how the English equivalent of African day names were being used. By the nineteenth century the African day names often had lost their meaning, but African Americans continued to give day names after their parents.
Quaco, the male day name for Wednesday, was also commonly found during the Colonial period. But later Quaco became Jacco, Jacky, and Jack. There was the case of Martin Jackson of Texas who decided to become Jackson because one of his relatives had a similar African name.
The master’s name was usually adopted by a slave after he was set free. This was done more because it was the logical thing to do and the easiest way to be identified, than it was through affection for the master. Also, the government seemed to be in an almighty hurry to have us get names. We had to register as
[page] 82
someone, so we could be citizens. Well, I got to thinking about all us slaves that were going to take the name Fitzpatrick. I made up my mind I’d find me a different one. One of my grandfathers in Africa was called Jeaceo, so I decided on Jackson.
By 1734, when the
South Carolina Gazette was established, names of African origin included Bowbaw, Cuffee, Ebo Jo, Ganda, Quaquo, Quomenor, and Quoy for male Africans and Auba, Bucko, Jba Mimba, Odah, and Otta for females. African names common in the eighteenth century were Sambo, Quash, Mingo, and Juba. The most widely used day names were Cuffee (Kofi) and Cudjoe for males and Abba and Juba for females.
According to Cohen, African day names and their English counterparts existed side by side. Two male slaves named Friday, one of them “this country born” and the other from the “Angola Country”, and two male slaves named Monday, one from “Bomborough” (Bambara?) and the other “A Barbian (Bambara) Negro” are mentioned in the Gazette.
Blanche Britt supplied Mencken with this list of African names taken from southern newspapers from 1736 to the end of the eighteenth century: Annika, Boohum, Boomy, Bowzar, Cuffee, Cuffey, Cuffy, Habella, Kauchee, Mila, Minas, Monimea, Oamo, Qua, Quaco, Quamina, Quash, Warrah, and Yonaha.
[Information about Table 6: "African Names From The South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1775" and that list of names is excluded from this excerpt as is information about Table 7 "Names Listed on the Dutch Slave Ship Wittepaert", and that list of names; Table 6 is given on page 83 and Table 7 is given on page 84.]
[...]
Africanisms In African-American Name Changes
Names are of great importance in West and Central Africa. Names are given at stages in an individual's life and, as among all people for whom magic is important, the identification of a real name with the personality of its bearer is held to be so complete that this real name, usually the one given at birth by a particular relative, must be kept secret lest it come in to the hands of someone who might use it in working evil magic against that person. That is way, among Africans, a person's name may in so many instances change with time, a new designation being assumed on the occasion of some striking occurrence in that person's life. When the person goes through one of the rites marking a new stage in his or her development, a name change also occurs to note the event.
Stuckey, in
Slave Culture; Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (1987) noted that Black naming practices were African in origin, in that African Americans changed their names just as Africans did, corresponding to major changes in the life of the individual. This name shifting is clearly demonstrated by
[page] 85
The experience of Frederick Douglas, who, soon after escaping slavery, began a series of name changes.
On the morning after our arrival at New Bedford, while at the breakfast-table, the question arose as to what name I should be called by. The name given me by my mother was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I, however, had dispensed with the two middle names long before I left Maryland so that I was generally known by the name Frederick Bailey. I started from Baltimore, I found it necessary again to change my name....I gave Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nathan Johnson of New Bedford, the privilege of choosing me a name, but told him he must not take from me the name of "Frederick", I must hold on to that sense of identity.
Sojourner Truth, a crusader for black emancipation and feminine equality, was known as Isabella until about age twenty, when she was freed and left her master's plantation. She had a vision in a dream that told her about her new name and her mission to free her people. And Malcolm X, through various stages of his life, was known as Malcolm Little, Homeboy, Detroit Red, Big Red, Satan, Malcolm, El-haji and Malik El Shabazz.
Such name shifting is common throughout West and particularly Central Africa. In many parts of Africa every man who leaves his traditional setting and family is given or takes a new name when he turns and walks away from home. This situation parallels that of slaves who were brought to the Americas, away from their ethnic group, but who remained in contact with others who shared a similar ethic background.
Nowhere is this tradition so vivid as in the jazz world, where name shifting is common, signaling a major event in the life of the musician: Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand La Menthe), Satchmo (Louis Armstrong), Yardbird (Charles Parker), Lady (Billie Holiday). The story of these name changes follows the African pattern of using a new name to adapt to new circumstances and changes in the person's life."
-end of that section of Chapter 2-
****
ADDENDUM: MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AKAN DAY NAMES
*Table 5 as given in the book "The African Heritage Of American English" by Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass are spelling forms of Akan day names (from Ghana and the Ivory Coast, West Africa).
Click
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/04/names-for-days-of-week-in-akan-language.html for a pancocojams post entitled "Names For Days Of The Week In Akan (Ghana & The Ivory Coast).
Here are two excerpts from that post's introduction to Akan naming practices
Excerpt #1
From
http://www.amesall.rutgers.edu/languages/128-akan-twi Akan (Twi) at Rutgers
"Akan refers to the language of the Akan ethnic group of Ghana. It is also spoken in the central and eastern part of Cote d’Ivoire. Akan comprises three main mutually intelligible dialects: Fante, Asante Twi and Akwapim Twi. Asante Twi is the widely used.
Akan is the most widely spoken and used indigenous language in Ghana. About 44%, of Ghana’s population of about 22 million, speak Akan as first language. However, about 80% of Ghanaians speak Akan as a first and second language. It is officially recognized for literacy, at least at the lower primary (Primary 1-3) level, and studied at university as a bachelor or masters program. It is the most important indigenous language of Ghana. It is the language of the Western, Central, Ashanti, Eastern, Brong Ahafo regions, and the northern portion of the Volta region of Ghana. A form of Akan is also spoken in South America, notably Suriname and Jamaica."...
****
Excerpt #2
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_names
"The Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These "day names" have further meanings concerning the soul and character of the person. Middle names have considerably more variety and can refer to their birth order, twin status, or an ancestor's middle name.
This naming tradition is shared throughout West Africa and the African diaspora. During the 18th–19th centuries, slaves in the Caribbean from the region that is modern-day Ghana were referred to as Coromantees. Many of the leaders of slave rebellions had "day names" including Cuffy or Kofi, Cudjoe or Kojo, and Quamina or Kwame/Kwamina.
Most Ghanaians have at least one name from this system, even if they also have an English or Christian name. Notable figures with day names include Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan."...
****
ADDENDUM: MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AKAN DAY NAMES
*Table 5 as given in the book "The African Heritage Of American English" by Joseph E. Holloway and Winifred K. Vass are spelling forms of Akan day names (from Ghana and the Ivory Coast, West Africa).
Click
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/04/names-for-days-of-week-in-akan-language.html for a pancocojams post entitled "Names For Days Of The Week In Akan (Ghana & The Ivory Coast).
Here are two excerpts from that post's introduction to Akan naming practices
Excerpt #1
From
http://www.amesall.rutgers.edu/languages/128-akan-twi Akan (Twi) at Rutgers
"Akan refers to the language of the Akan ethnic group of Ghana. It is also spoken in the central and eastern part of Cote d’Ivoire. Akan comprises three main mutually intelligible dialects: Fante, Asante Twi and Akwapim Twi. Asante Twi is the widely used.
Akan is the most widely spoken and used indigenous language in Ghana. About 44%, of Ghana’s population of about 22 million, speak Akan as first language. However, about 80% of Ghanaians speak Akan as a first and second language. It is officially recognized for literacy, at least at the lower primary (Primary 1-3) level, and studied at university as a bachelor or masters program. It is the most important indigenous language of Ghana. It is the language of the Western, Central, Ashanti, Eastern, Brong Ahafo regions, and the northern portion of the Volta region of Ghana. A form of Akan is also spoken in South America, notably Suriname and Jamaica."...
****
Excerpt #2
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_names
"The Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast frequently name their children after the day of the week they were born and the order in which they were born. These "day names" have further meanings concerning the soul and character of the person. Middle names have considerably more variety and can refer to their birth order, twin status, or an ancestor's middle name.
This naming tradition is shared throughout West Africa and the African diaspora. During the 18th–19th centuries, slaves in the Caribbean from the region that is modern-day Ghana were referred to as Coromantees. Many of the leaders of slave rebellions had "day names" including Cuffy or Kofi, Cudjoe or Kojo, and Quamina or Kwame/Kwamina.
Most Ghanaians have at least one name from this system, even if they also have an English or Christian name. Notable figures with day names include Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan."...
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
